


The Staircase

by murphysdye



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Character Death, EXTREME SLOWBURN & SAD ENDING SORRY, M/M, bellamy blake/john murphy - Freeform, it's not even a relationship technically, not really mxm but do you know what it's kinda, too much plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 12:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4101166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murphysdye/pseuds/murphysdye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So Bellamy had discovered John was dyslexic. But John always seemed to keep reading. He even read out loud when he thought no one was listening...but Bellamy could hear him pronounce almost all the words wrong."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Staircase

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the au about Murphy being dyslexic & loving Shakespeare. Think "Dye". 
> 
> Proceed with care if you're sensitive to the ideas of alcohol, self harm, suicide etc. Nothing explicit but implied stuff.
> 
> I like my ships slowburn and sad, and so this is what you get. It's probably not a happy ending. Sorry not sorry x

Bellamy had lived opposite to the Murphy family ever since he first bought his apartment when he was seventeen, and he couldn’t really imaging life without seeing them. When Bellamy had first moved in, he had immediately met Mrs Murphy. (Even now, to this day, he didn’t know her first name. Not that he hadn’t tried to find out). Mrs Murphy had been lecturing her son about the importance of getting good grades at school in the middle of the staircase. The boy was listening intently, his brown hair sweeping into his eyes as he fiddled with the dog-eared copy of Shakespeare’s Hamlet clutched to his chest. As Bellamy had struggled past with various backpacks and bags, mentally complementing the boy’s tastes in literature, the boy and Mrs Murphy had immediately jumped in to help him up the stairs.

(These stairs were going to become the centre of the Earth). 

And so it had unfolded from there. Bellamy grew quite friendly with the three members of the family, always smiling at them and helping them whenever he could. He also soon learned that their boy, John, was dyslexic. John Murphy, who was six years Bellamy's junior, struggled in school, and was lonely and isolated. Bellamy at first could understand the loneliness, as John didn’t seem like a very social person in the first place, but the struggling at school? At first he didn’t believe it, because whenever he saw the kid he was usually sprawled out on the staircase—completely in the way, mind—with a book or script or some form of literature in his pale hands. Mostly old stuff, too. But Bellamy eventually heard the shouting through the walls over homework, and as plain as day the boyish crying over history dates and maths equations, and the hopelessness in the slowly breaking voice about how he was never going to be good at anything ever and he didn’t care anymore, mum, so don’t make him do it!

So Bellamy had discovered John was dyslexic. But John always seemed to keep reading. He even read out loud when he thought no one was listening...but Bellamy could hear him pronounce almost all the words wrong.

_

On a bleary Tuesday afternoon, about a year after Bellamy had moved in, he was coming back home from school. Absolutely wrecked beyond words he stumbled up the staircase, texting his little sister and not paying attention as he climbed the familiar steps. He usually did this, as his sister was always worried for him and missed him, even though she was fiercely independent for her age. Bellamy had been forming a response to quite an amusing text from Octavia when he trod on something quite hard—a something which also yelped—and fell, just about saving himself by grabbing the hand rail and clutching it as if it were a lifeline, phone falling from his hand and rucksack sliding off his shoulder and down his arm. 

Bellamy then collected himself together, before straightening himself up and looking down at the source of his embarrassment to find John looking completely shell shocked, his book knocked down the stairs and lying with the pages face down on the (quite grimy) floor a few steps down, with Bellamy’s phone in his lap. 

Of course. Bellamy usually knew subconsciously when to manoeuvre himself around the boy, but he had been so caught up in texting Octavia, and John’s leg had been a little too far over from where it usually was, that Bellamy had completely messed up his calculations and trodden on the boy’s leg.

“I-I’m sorry.” John stuttered, scrambling to pick up Bellamy’s phone and hand it back to him, “I was in the way.” 

Bellamy waved it off, pocketing his phone. “It’s okay. I wasn’t looking where I was going. Are you alright?” Bellamy saw John roll up his trouser leg to reveal a rather large bruise beginning to swell bright purple on his shin, and then saw his eyes dart down the stairs. Bellamy offered him a smile, feeling guilty about the bruise on the boy’s leg. The least he could do was apologise and fetch his book for him, “Don’t worry. I’ll get it.” 

Bellamy skipped down the stairs quickly and stooped down, being careful to pick up the book with care. It was a scruffy hardback, with a torn spine and yellowed pages. But not un-cared for. Not at all; it looked loved and well-read. He flipped the book over and read the title, nodding in approval; it was a complete collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Definitely not something an ordinary adolescent boy would read…let alone a dyslexic one.

“So you like Shakespeare, I take it. You're always reading his works.” Bellamy said casually, flipping through the pages gently. The pages were yellowed and worn. John stayed silent and looked down at his hands. Bellamy smiled, “Don’t worry, kiddo, I like him too.” He handed the book to John, who took it and hugged it to his chest. 

“I love reading. But the words are really hard," John said suddenly, "And I can’t read well. And dad says it’s okay, and so does mum, but I don’t think it’s okay because I can’t do English at school and I can’t do maths either. Or science.” John blurted, nibbling on his lip. Bellamy, almost thrown off track by the sudden brotherly intimacy and trust from the youngest Murphy, slowly crouched down—oh good God the pain in his knee from the fall—and patted John on the shoulder. John flinched, so he withdrew his hand quickly.

“No, no. I understand where you’re coming from.” He didn’t really know what else to say. He was hardly qualified in childrens' therapy. And John looked so innocent and scared...but he always did. “So…you like reading?” John nodded, his thumb rubbing the pages in a rather affectionate way, a habit he had picked up years ago. Bellamy still felt guilty about the bruise and suddenly it all made sense. 

John looked up at Bellamy with his messy halo of dark hair and freckles dusting his olive skin, “Then I think I’ve got something to show you…” 

_

After Bellamy had showed John his collection of books and said John was allowed to come in and borrow them as he wished, they pretty much immediately become friends—Bellamy feeling the same about John as he did with his sister while John looked up at Bellamy, this shining ray of light, as his hero. Bellamy was so patient and kind and would read with John, and whenever he wasn’t studying he would teach John new words and help him dive even further into the beautiful world of literature. Whenever John wasn’t at home, at school or sat in the staircase, he was in Bellamy’s library—the small room adjacent to Bellamy’s bedroom cluttered with books and papers, coated with dust and sunlight and serenity—being read to, or more often than not reading aloud.

And so Bellamy watched John grow older, and watched with an unexpected pride as he became more interested in the world of poetry and writing. Bellamy was always glad to read John’s musings and poems written on the backs of receipts before anyone else did, no matter how many mistakes or issues. They were all sadly beautiful, tinged with something unique, something different. The kid was a total prodigy. Bellamy loved all of them. 

(Although no matter how close they got, John never showed Bellamy the poem scrawled in bad handwriting in the back of his science textbook about the tall, handsome boy with freckles and dark hair like curls of paper.) 

It was natural for John to grow older and come to admire the first person outside of his family to show him such friendship with such a fierce admiration he would find himself always thinking about those dark brown eyes. And maybe also those freckles. Okay, and those arms too.

_

John Murphy was naturally quite a weak person. He had grown up bullied by all those around him, and was often sent home from school due to being sick or stressed because of his frail and fragile state. His mind, although filled with new and fascinating words he couldn’t always spell, was plagued with harsh words and lonely thoughts. 

And when he was just turned fifteen, his entire world fell apart. 

_

Bellamy had to admit, he was worried when John got the flu for the second time that term. He knew his body was quite weak and he didn’t have the best immune system either. But this time John was seriously sick, and was at the hospital. Bellamy’s library felt so empty without the presence of the pale teenager lying across his floor in rather odd positions, a pile of manuscripts and books beside him…and yet the room felt so crowded with Bellamy's worry for the boy—it felt just like the time Octavia had gone missing for a couple of nights. He couldn’t stop pacing. He couldn’t concentrate on his university studying long enough to remember anything. He just kept tapping his pen, tapping his foot, eventually tapping his head on the table. 

“It’s just the flu. Modern medicine is available. Calm down.” He muttered to himself for the hundredth time, scrawling down another date in handwriting too messy to be his own. 

Bellamy later discovered that evening that he kept jumping at every little sound and slight movement, as if utterly paranoid—when his phone went off he swore he almost saw the bright white light, and when the doorbell rang Bellamy wondered why he hadn’t written his will yet because it would be needed very shortly. He was a mess. 

Stretching and collecting himself together, Bellamy rose to his feet and persuaded his heart to stop trying to tear through his chest. Padding his way into the small and rather messy hallway of his apartment, he reached forward and pulled the door open. Standing there was Alex Murphy, John’s father.

“Mr Murphy, what are y—” Bellamy started, but Alex had pushed his way past the boy and stumbled into his apartment. Bellamy, rubbing his now aching shoulder, turned and stared at John’s father. His face, pink from exertion, was streaked with sweat and tears, his chest heaving. 

“Bellamy.” Alex said Bellamy’s name as if it was scratching his throat, his voice hoarse; most likely from whatever had caused him to be this out of breath. Had he been running? Why had he been running? “Water, Bellamy. Now.” 

Bellamy, too shocked to say anything about manners or about why John’s father had unexpectedly arrived at his apartment after no previous interactions beyond smiles and good mornings, nodded once and scampered into his tiny kitchen, rattling around for a glass. He turned on the tap and winced as cold water gushed into the glass and onto his hand. Fumbling his way back into the hallway, Alex snatched the glass from his hand and drank it in two mouthfuls. 

“Mr Murphy—”

“My son…they weren’t giving him the attention he needed…so...God, I’m so stupid.” Alex threw himself onto the cold floor and let the glass clatter to the ground. “I stole medicine, Blake. They caught me trying to give it to him. I’m so bloody stupid—it wasn’t even the right medicine and I’m going to get arrested and sent to jail. I’m going to be a goddamn criminal.” 

“You’re going to be fine.” The lie tasted bitter on Bellamy’s tongue. Like rust. Like blood. 

“Sure. Sure.” 

And Alex Murphy wasn’t fine. He was far from it. That night he crashed, uninvited at that, on Bellamy’s rickety sofa, too scared to go back to the hospital, too angry to go back home. And so it stayed like this for two nights and exactly two days and a bit—for the police were hungry hounds and Alex Murphy reeked of guilt and criminality. It was a sorry sight for Bellamy, seeing Alex Murphy being handcuffed in his apartment, and watching with a heavy heart as Alex Murphy was taken away and led down the stairs. What would John say? Would he think it was Bellamy’s fault? Surely not. John wasn’t like that—although he could be rather forward and angry at the world at times. He had always been so emotional. 

Bellamy leaned against the windowpane, staring as the flashing lights of the police car disappeared. Poor John. The boy’s life was already hard, what with the way he struggled at school and the way he didn’t have friends—and now his father was being arrested for theft, for trying to help his ill son. Bellamy sighed and rested his forehead against the cool window, the evening sun stinging his eyes. He made a mental note that he would have to somehow subtlety let John know it wasn’t his fault. John always blamed himself for everything. For his mother being made redundant that one time, for the words he could not pronounce, and even for his cat getting run over by a truck two years ago when he had been at school. 

("I should have locked the door! I shouldn't have been at school!" "But you need to go to school, Murph." "That's what mum said.") 

But as if John’s life wasn’t already enough like a sad story, it was about to become a tragedy. 

_

When John came home from the hospital a few days later, he didn’t visit Bellamy. Bellamy didn’t see him sprawled out in the stairway, and didn’t even see him leave the block of apartments on the rough journey to school. Bellamy wasn’t surprised. The police car Alex Murphy was being driven to the station in had been very old and had broken down at the side of the road, but then it had combusted and the fire killed everyone inside. 

Unexpected. Traumatic. Awful. (John's fault?)

Bellamy couldn’t help feeling guilty, but he had done everything he could. He didn’t call the police when Alex Murphy had taken refuge in his apartment. The police had just sniffed him out. 

Bellamy had to lie down for a long while with a small glass of watered down wine when he heard the news. And every night he could hear shouting coming from the Murphy’s place—the thick with tears, sharp with hoarse throats sort of shouting. It usually was accompanied with the sound of smashing glass and thudding and cries of pain. It was hardly a melody and accompaniment, but it simply became background noise to Bellamy, something he would live with for the next few months leading up to John’s sixteenth birthday. It was quite terrifying, but it was grief, and it was life. 

And it was painful. John never visited him again. Not intentionally, anyway, because sometimes Bellamy would cross paths with John and offer him a small, comforting smile, only to get a flinch or a look of pure fear in return. That upset the both of them. 

John’s grades slipped further, something Bellamy didn't think was possible. His reading skills almost completely diminished. Poetry was no longer something beautiful for John. It was painful, and every time he tried to write something down his hand would shake. 

And John hated himself more. He thought it was his fault. And he could no longer even look at Bellamy without feeling a heavy, deep set feeling of shame. His body soon became a canvas, criss-crossed with marks of self hatred and loathing. He almost died at one point, but he vomited and managed to wake up. And he hated it. He hated himself. And he couldn’t talk. But he wanted to. He could no longer cry—all his tears had been shed. He just felt an ache in his chest as his heart shattered. He was broken. He was even more deranged than before. Nobody at school even dared point him out to their friends anymore—he was just too violent, too scary. He almost killed the last guy who asked him where his dad was. 

What had he become? What had he done? 

_

It was late at night, a few days after John Murphy’s sixteenth birthday, and everything was silent. Bellamy found it strange, but did not do anything. The silence was welcomed, was almost peaceful. But it was strange, and Bellamy couldn’t help but feel something bad had happened. There was a weight in his chest, pushing down on his lungs, and he felt the urge to knock on the door of the Murphy household. 

So he crossed the hallway and knocked on the door politely, calmly. It was silent. He knocked again. Again, it was silent. Nothing seemed to stir from behind the whitewashed wooden door. Bellamy knocked again, but apprehensively. He felt uncomfortable. 

“John? Mrs Murphy?” He cautiously pushed open the door, to which he jumped when it creaked slightly. Breathing slowly, he stepped in, heart thudding against his ribcage. The floorboards groaned, and he could see stains on the walls, marks from thrown glasses and spilt drinks and…and what looked disturbingly like blood. This is awful, Bellamy thought, John is technically still a child. He should not be living here. 

He slowly made his way through the hallway, carefully pushing open doors. The rooms were dark, but he knew nobody was in them. The living room was also empty, and he came to the conclusion that nobody was in, and was about to leave when he heard a slight coughing, choking sound. Like sobbing. Bellamy froze—it had sounded like John. 

“John? Are you here?” He followed in the direction of the sound, until he reached the bathroom. All the lights in the small apartment were off except for the bathroom light. The door was ajar and he could hear John groaning quietly, coughing and crying. He sucked in a breath and pushed open the door. He almost slammed the door shut and ran out of the house when he saw what lay in front of him. “Oh my God.” 

Mrs Murphy was lying, very still, very silent, in a pool of vomit and blood, an empty bottle of alcohol lying broken by her hand. John was kneeling by his dead mother, looking rather dead himself, covered in her vomit with his palms cut open from the broken bottle. The entire room reeked of rust, alcohol and vomit.

“I…I hated her. I hated her. But…but I didn’t want her to die. Bellamy. My mother. I hated her. I hated her. She’s dead. She said…she said I killed him. I killed him. She’s dead. He’s dead. It’s my fault. I killed them. I killed them. I killed my parents.” John looked like he was on the brink of insanity, if he wasn't already there. His voice was thick with tears and his hair was unwashed and his clothes were covered in blood and vomit and tears. 

“John.” Bellamy’s voice was firm, so firm the crying boy stopped crying and looked up, his eyes red and his pale skin blotchy. He softened his voice, “Listen to me, John. Can you hear me? Please, stand up. Come with me. It’s going to be okay.” 

Bellamy held out his hand to the teenager, who was shaking and looking between the dead body of his mother and the boy who had taught him new words. 

“Where are we going?” John asked, sounding so much like a young child. 

“The staircase. We’re going to the staircase.” Bellamy was gentle, when really he wanted to be sick himself. He didn’t want to trigger anything—he knew John could be violent, could be angry and could be dangerous. “But first we’re going to get you cleaned up and then we’ll go to the staircase. And then we can talk.” 

“I want her back. I want her back.” John croaked, a sticky substance running down his chin, but eventually he took Bellamy’s hand and allowed him to lead him through his own house. John held on tight, and Bellamy didn’t say anything. The poor boy was so vulnerable, and the look in his eyes had almost killed Bellamy. It had been so sad, so scared, so guilty, so lonely. 

Bellamy had to take him into the kitchen, taking off the boy’s shirt, remembering how he used to do this with Octavia whenever she vomited as a little kid, rummaging around in the piles of clean washing for a new one. He gave John the newer shirt and a cloth to clean his face and arms. Bellamy could smell the vomit and blood, but did not mention it. Bellamy found the first-aid box in the cupboard—thank God for the similar layout of the apartment—and cleaned John’s hands. John didn’t stop shaking the entire time, and kept muttering. Bellamy’s sadness grew more intense when he saw the state of John Murphy’s canvas arms. Afterwards, Bellamy led John out of his apartment, away from the dead body, and sat down on one of the steps. John carefully lowered himself down next to him. 

“She’s gone forever, isn’t she?” The question was childish, but nonetheless expected. 

“Yes. She’s gone.” Bellamy’s throat felt clammy, and his palms felt sweaty. John looked awful—all dark circles and prominent veins. 

“Did I kill her?” 

“No, no, of course not.” The words felt rusty and bitter on Bellamy’s tongue. How strange and peculiar, Bellamy thought, because it wasn’t a lie. 

John Murphy let out a small laugh, but far from an amused one. Bellamy reached out and gently put an arm around his shoulder, and John leaned in. Bellamy felt quite warm and didn’t smell of blood and death. If John had been like this, pressed up against Bellamy, about a year ago his heart would have been fluttering. But his heart was too sore to flutter, too weighed down by the pain to beat. 

“Can I stay with you?” John asked, pleading. He wanted to go back to Bellamy’s house and he had been aching to for a long time. Bellamy sighed deeply, a sound of sorrow, and John grabbed Bellamy’s free arm. “Please. I’ll get a job and pay my part. I don’t want to go back in there—” He gestured with his head to the apartment to their right, “—and I don’t want to go into care or whatever. Please, Bellamy.”

John’s eyes were a pale blue and were rather startling. Bellamy bit his lip and hesitated. Later on he was going to have to call the police, and John knew it, and Bellamy would be happy to let John live with him…but he knew social services wouldn’t. 

“You won’t be allowed. You can’t. I’m sorry.” 

“I want to go home.” John said, his voice cracking, and he fell into Bellamy, his head hitting the older boy’s chest. “I want to go home.” 

Bellamy’s arms were firm around John as he sobbed, and it was quite peaceful despite the reason they were there in the first place. Bellamy rocked John, much like he did his sister, and the younger boy’s sobs soon fell quite quiet and slow, in time to the calm movement. John gripped Bellamy like he was a source of life, a source of sanity. And they both stayed there on the staircase, Bellamy holding John as he cried, both trapped between the apartment doors either side of them, stuck on the staircase, both not sure what was to happen next. 

But they did, after all, have each other. And they were both sat on the staircase they had met on, were both sat on the staircase where they would soon have to most likely part unless Bellamy could convince social services. He'd fight for John. He loved the boy very much. And that was, in an odd, aching, painful way, okay.


End file.
